Love the versatility in a piece of chicken. Today I decided to make paella with it. Kids don’t want to eat shrimps or clamps, but chicken and chorizo is always a good proposal. Mis-en-place is a pain, but once ready, you can make a good paella pretty easy. Here’s how and what.

Needed :

• 1 tablespoon of smoked paprika powder
• 2 teaspoons of dried oregano
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 200 gram of boneless chicken
• garlic
• 2 cups of paella rice (or whatever rice you have at hand, of course. Short grain)
• 1 teaspoon of dried chili rings
• 1 tube of saffran threads
• 2 bay leafs
• loads of flat leaf parsley
• 1 liter of chicken stock
• 1 zested lemon
• 1 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 250 grams of chorizo
• 250 grams of divided chicken wings

Seems like a lot, but don’t worry. step-by-step it’ll get easier.

First, start by cutting up the boneless chicken into small cubes and put the in a bowl, together with a chopped up pepper, the paprika powder, oregano and some salt and pepper. Mix well and set aside (preferably refrigerated) for later use.

Now you can start of by cooking and grilling, while cutting things up on the go, but I prefer to do everything up front in the kitchen and have it ready when needed.

I’ve started by letting my youngest son mix up some olive oil and a nice chicken rub in a bowl. They will go first later on.

Now, I’ve started to chop the garlic and add the crushed chili rings.

I’ve also prepped the bay leafs and the safran, and measured out the rice. No big deal, but easy enough to work with once you start on the BBQ. Temperature is quite high, so walking of to do some cutting is too much time and you’re food will burn.

I’ve removed the plastic outside of the chorizo and crumbled it into a bowl too.

Created a liter of chicken broth, ready to go.

And setup most of the stuff on a tray next to the table. Now the grilling and combining starts.

I’ve started by heating up some 2 – 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the paella pan. Once hot, I’ve added the garlic and chili and the rice too. Keep stirring the rice until it’s nicely covered in oil and it gets slightly crispy.

Now add the stock, bay leafs, safran and the zest of the lemon and (try to) bring down the temperature to a medium heat and let it boil into the rice itself. I’ve closed the lid and closed the air vents almost all the way, and it took me about 15 minutes to have the rice ready.

I’ve whisked it through and set that aside for later use.

The second part is getting a new pan on and heating up some oil again (apparently very important for paella…. ), and bake the chicken / pepper mixture, with the onion added until nice and brown and then add the chorizo and keep stirring until the oil releases from the chorizo, creating some great flavor for the paella.

The mixture is now whisked through the cooked rice and I’ve topped it off with the divided wings and the lemon slices from the one we used for the zest.

Bon appetit, or in spanish, Buen apetito!